Report from BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitator Following Visit in March

Key person: Doris Nkausu

Recent Events

Family

In October 2017, after a number of years of health difficulties, Lemon sadly passed away leaving his wife Grace. The family here have grieved and felt the loss of Lemon. They have had great support from David Lukama (ZAM19c) in helping work through some of the traditional family matters where the family of the deceased in Zambia are normally able to come and take whatever is assumed belongs to them, even when the widow left is still living.

Throughout the year Doris and Lemon had made plans for what they were thinking would be best for their community. Doris has taken hold of these plans very seriously and it seems with even more strength and conviction that this is what she needs to be spending her time doing.  

Foundations for Farming Training

Doris and Lemon have now trained all the guardians of the orphans they support. The people in the community have seen the original trainees' farms and how abundant they are and have been asking for training in farming for themselves. In the area that she lives Doris saw the younger men and women were spending their time drinking and wasting their days. She decided to call 20 of them together, 10 women and 10 men (some of them are couples), and did a Foundations for Farming training for them. 

We met with some of the women from the group who were talking about the course and what they had learned. They can see that using compost is going to be a great thing for their maize growing. They were really positive and excited about the new methods of farming and were not worried about what people thought of them not using traditional methods. "They might laugh until they see the outcome" said one of the women confidently.

Doris will work with this group this year to make compost and then plant a small area each on the Nkausu’s land. 

Orphan Programme

The group of orphans that are being supported through school in this partnership are predominantly in grade 9 and up now. Six children sat their final school exams last year, three have passed and three have failed. Doris has said to the ones who have failed that they have one more chance or else they will be trained in farming and start working at that.

There are five young women who have become pregnant. These girls have been told that they can no longer go to school but Doris will help them with farming training so that they can look after themselves and their babies.

Ideas for the Future

Doris would like to run another Foundations for Farming course in April for another 20 young people which would include the five young women from the orphan program who have had babies.

In May Grace will be training the six orphans who have finished school. They want to put the profits from the tomatoes in an account to use for the next year. 

Doris has a proposal for renovating the chicken house into rental accommodation (building in photo).

Current Issues and Challenges

Throughout this area there is a large number of young women getting pregnant before finishing school and outside of marriage. This means that they normally drop out of school. Part of the continued development of this community will need to include an understanding of how God is wanting young men and women to live and why.  

Prayer and Praise Points

Walking through the fields of maize, sweet potato, ground nuts and soyabeans on the Nkausu’s land is awe inspiring. The fields were planted two weeks after Lemon had passed away. The women knew that they had to continue the work and they see that working through their time of grief leaves the community with no excuses for not planting their own maize. The quality and size of the maize is actually the biggest I have seen. This is a real testimont to their faithfulness through such a difficult time and evidence of God working through these women and being their strength.

Pray that Doris and Grace will continue being a part of what God is changing in this community and that this kind of abundance in farming will spread throughout the area and become known as a blessed area.